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OTTAWA—First they grabbed the spotlight and now they’re moving closer to centre stage.

A group of Indigenous activists, who had a confrontation with police when they set up a teepee on the edge of the Canada Day celebration zone on Parliament Hill Thursday, announced to cheering supporters later in the day that RCMP security agreed to let them move next to the main stage.

Hamda Deria, who was negotiating with police on behalf of the group, said they expected to move their large, white teepee “about 20 metres” to the left of the stage — ground zero for the country’s 150th birthday bash — later Thursday night.

The RCMP did not respond to many requests for comment Thursday.

Members of the Bawating Water Protectors, who came to the capital from Sault Ste. Marie on Wednesday to set up the teepee, told the Star that the goal of their “reoccupation” of Parliament Hill is to highlight how Canada’s 150th anniversary is a painful reminder of residential schools, the appropriation of land, and decades of government-sponsored assimilation of Indigenous peoples.

The group points out that Parliament, itself is built on land that the Algonquin Anishinabe First Nation says is unceded. It plans to perform Indigenous ceremonies in the teepee all weekend, when 500,000 revellers are expected in downtown Ottawa.

“We’re inviting these people to this ceremony, because our purpose is to educate (about) our side of what Canada Day means, that it’s hurting us,” said Candace Day Neveau, one of the members of the Bawating Water Protectors.

“We’re framing this in a way where we can invite settlers to really think about that and what it is they’re celebrating, the cultural genocide that our people have been through,” she said.

“Celebrating 150 like this and Canada Day is absolutely ignorant, especially after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission all came out.”

Pierre-Olivier Herbert, a spokesperson for federal Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, said in an emailed statement that the government recognizes that not all Canadians are celebrating the 150th milestone. He said the Liberal government is committed to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

“We will continue to listen, learn more about one another, and work to understand each other, because, at its core, that is what reconciliation is all about,” he said.

Early Thursday morning, the group arrived carrying poles for the teepee, said Gibway Naataazhing, another member of the group from Thessalon First Nation near Sault Ste. Marie.

He said several RCMP officers stopped them and said they were trespassing. Naataazhing said that he told police “we have the right to use these objects for our ceremonies on ceremonial land.” After a short standoff, he said one officer “put his arm around my neck” and he was handcuffed.

Naataazhing and eight others were detained in a tent on the Hill grounds for about an hour, he said. No one was charged, but Naataazhing showed the Star the notice he was given by police that bars him from Parliament Hill for six months.

“I’m willing to take the hit, you know? For this cause,” Naataazhing said, tapping the poles of the teepee as the huge sound system played a violin version of “God Save the Queen.”

“I’ve never seen this, a teepee on Parliament Hill,” he said. “It’s really powerful.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Indigenous peoples to his Liberal government. He has vowed to change the name of Langevin Block, which houses the Prime Minister’s Office and many chief bureaucratic operatives, so that it is no longer named for the man who designed the country’s residential schools.

His government has also promised to lift dozens of drinking water advisories that have affected Indigenous communities for years — in some cases going back to the 1990s — and has pledged more than $11 billion for improved housing, social programs and other initiatives over six years.

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The government has also been criticized for a lack of action on many fronts. Last month, for example, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found, for the third time, that the federal government was breaking the law by failing to make adequate social and health programming available to all Indigenous children.

The ruling prompted accusations that the federal government could have prevented the suicides of young girls at a northern Ontario First Nation if more mental health funding had been made available.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Prince Edward Island on Thursday, Trudeau said he expects security for the celebrations to make sure people are safe while also dealing with them respectfully.

“I understand and hear very clearly the issues that a number of people, including the individuals who are setting up the teepee on the hill, are expressing,” he said.

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